The New York Life Foundation has announced a four-year, $1.4 million grant to the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement to fund ongoing operations and build its capacity to provide bereavement resources in schools.

Located at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and the Drexel University College of Medicine, the center provides counsel and training to school professionals, mental health providers, and other professionals who work with grieving children and families.

The grant also will be used to establish the Coalition to Support Grieving Students, an effort to bring together national educational associations to provide the expertise required to develop bereavement resources such as training modules, guided learning, talking points, and supportive materials. The initiative is believed to be the first of its kind.

"We are proud to be part of this critical project that will create a centralized, widely accepted resource that will provide educators and other school personnel with the information and training they need to help grieving children in K through twelfth grade," said National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement director David Schonfeld, a pediatrician-in-chief at St. Christopher's and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Drexel University College of Medicine. "The primary goal of the project is to recognize the important role that schools play in supporting children at times of loss and to empower educators and other school personnel to support grieving children in the school setting."